Teenager Gukesh Dommaraju of India turned the youngest chess world champion by beating defending champion Ding Liren of China on Thursday in a dramatic flip of occasions within the final recreation of a 14-game match in Singapore.
The 18th world champion is, at age 18, 4 years youthful than Garry Kasparov, who had been the youngest world champion since 1985 when he beat Anatoly Karpov.
Gukesh gained Thursday’s recreation with the black items after Ding wilted beneath stress and blundered in what commentators thought of to be a cushty place, snatching the title with a closing rating of seven.5-6.5.
“I in all probability received so emotional as a result of I didn’t actually anticipate to win that place,” Gukesh informed reporters.
Ding, whose kind has plummeted since he beat Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi to assert the crown in 2023, had not gained a long-time format “classical” recreation since January and largely averted prime occasions in a bid to enhance.
However the Chinese language participant regained confidence after a shock win within the opening spherical of the match and, following two wins for Gukesh and eight attracts, had evened the rating in spherical 12 with a victory which was acclaimed by a number of commentators.
“Everyone knows who Ding is, he has been the most effective gamers in historical past for a number of years,” Gukesh added.
The match was a 14-round occasion with a prize fund of $2.5 million US.
India’s Gukesh Dommaraju, 17, is the youngest challenger for the World Chess Championship after successful the FIDE Candidates match in Toronto on Sunday. Dommaraju, who turned a chess grandmaster at 12, will play China’s Ding Liren for the world title later this yr.
Gukesh had certified in April, by successful the candidates match held in Toronto, an eight-player, double round-robin occasion that includes fellow Indians Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Vidit Gujrathi.
They and their teammates from India gained gold within the open and girls’s sections of the forty fifth Chess Olympiad in Budapest in September, which many professionals attributed to the efforts of former world champion Viswanathan Anand to advertise chess within the nation.
World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, who had been world champion since 2013, relinquished his title in 2022, citing a scarcity of motivation.
“Changing into the world champion does not imply that I am one of the best participant on the planet, clearly there’s Magnus, so it is also a motivating issue,” Gukesh mentioned.
Gukesh, born in Chennai, India, turned a grandmaster at age 12, the third-youngest to attain the feat at the moment.